Movie Night
by Elizabeth Bartlett
Summary: No one was sure when Movie Night started, but they were glad just the same. R&R.


A/N: I wondered what 'movie night' would be like on Atlantis and this one-shot was born. Spoliers for s1 and s3 and I don't own SGA (although I wish I did) or any of the movies mentioned. Read and Review.

Looking back, they weren't really sure when "Movie Night" started. Sheppard said that it started after the Athosians left and they discovered what looked like to be some kind of rec. room, but no one knew for sure.

But anyways, some of the members had brought a wide verity of DVDs as their one personal item; Horror, Western, Musical, Cartoon, Classic, New Release, Chick-flick…the selections were everywhere on the map.

Not long after everyone settled in and a routine was established a flyer was spotted advertising a showing of 'Casablanca'. Apparently someone had figured out how to hook up their computer to the Ancient screen in the room and make it compatible so that it would play both the picture and sound.

The movie was fairly popular and it continued that way for a while until word spread that 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' was next.

Half of the Expedition was angry that they had to be on-duty during the movie while the other half were trying to schedule their missions around it. It became such a problem that Doctor Weir made a city-wide announcement that there would two showings; one on Saturday and one on Sunday. There were lists up in the cafeteria so people could sign up for one day or the other but if a name appeared on both lists they'd get bumped and scheduled to work both days.

The lists filled up rapidly and when it came time for the first showing the room was packed. "Movie Night" quickly caught on and almost every showing people vied to get a good seat.

The types of movies they watched changed over time. Vampire movies were quickly nixed because of the frighteningly similarity they held to the Wraith. When 'Van Helsing' surfaced it was considered, since it also dealt with the Wolfman and Frankenstien's Monster, but when an Airman mentioned that the baby vampire pods looked disturbingly like the ones that infant Wraith were held in, it was quietly changed to 'Die Hard'.

After the hurricane all disaster movies (including the cheesy sci-fi channel ones) disappeared from the list of movies to be shown and in their place musicals appeared.

When Atlantis reconnected with Earth people were overjoyed because in addition to getting their mail (which had been stock piled at the SGC for them) from the past year and getting regular supplies they got a number of new movies, refreshing their almost exhausted collection.

Those who had just arrived on the Daedalus failed to understand why the weekly (baring some unfortunate disaster) movie night was so popular among the original members of the Expedition. But as the year went on, they quickly began to see why. It wasn't _just_ about the movie; it meant that for a few hours people could forget about their work, the Wraith, Replicators, Genii (or anyone who wanted to hurt/kill/maim/destroy them), their research, loneliness, missing their family back on Earth or the all to real fact that they could die the next day.

For those two or three hours (depending if they watched the directors cut or not) they could get all those things out of their head and pretend they were somewhere else.

But the movies also served to remember those who had died while on Atlantis.

When 'The China Syndrome' was shown Peter Grodin's favorite spot was left empty.

With 'Platoon' all the military in the audience were silent and Sheppard had been seen fiddling with his black armband.

After the explosions 'Braveheart' was shown. With Doctor Weir's consent, Colonel Sheppard cancelled all off-world missions while the department heads let their staff take a (unbelievably) rare night off. There was no standing or sitting room left an hour before the movie was set to begin so Weir asked McKay to set up an extension to the cafeteria. At the end of the movie there wasn't a dry eye anywhere on the city, each remembering the man who had patched them up one time or another.

As the years went by the movies continued but genre's changed. Gone were the thrillers, horrors, mysteries, alien invasions, space explorations and in their place were classics, black and white, musicals, cartoons, anime.

No one commented on the change because they all knew why; the movies that they had so much enjoyed at the start of the expedition were all too real for them now.

But as long as they could escape for a few hours then maybe, just maybe, things would turn out all right.

After all, that's what happened in the movies.


End file.
